UTSA wins 76-50 in exhibition as Lichonczak makes his debut

SAN ANTONIO — For the first time in 14 years, the women’s basketball team at UTSA opened a season without Rae Rippetoe-Blair on the sideline.

Rippetoe-Blair stepped down as head coach in August after 13 seasons because of personal reasons, a move that led to the promotion of longtime assistant Luby Lichonczak.

With Lichonczak in charge, UTSA introduced a dribble-drive offensive attack Friday night at the Convocation Center.

The Roadrunners promptly beat a path to the basket and to the free throw line in a 76-50 exhibition victory over the Division II East Central Lady Lions.

UTSA hit 27 of 43 free throws en route to an easy victory over the Lady Lions from Ada, Okla.

Notably, the Roadrunners unleashed freshman center Tesha Smith, who led a 59-43 assault on the boards. Smith had 15 rebounds and seven points in only 15 minutes.

In the backcourt, point guard Miki Turner ran the offense and led UTSA with 16 points. Kamra King added 13, while Niaga Mitchell-Cole and Ashley Spaletta supplied firepower off the bench with 11 apiece.

Lichonczak admitted that he had mixed feelings about his first game as head coach of the Roadrunners

“You wish the best for coach Blair and her family,” he said. ”You hope that things go well for them. That’s the first thought in my mind. The other thing is you want the kids to perform well and enjoy the opportunities that they have to play.”

Rippetoe-Blair was hired as head coach in 2000 and became one of the top coaches in the history of UTSA athletics.

She fashioned a 216-173 record with a couple of NCAA tournament appearances and two Southland Conference regular-season championships.

The team responded well to the change against East Central.

Lichonczak said he was happy with his players in the first half, when they bounced back from a shaky start and rattled off a 21-2 run at one stage for a 14-point lead.

East Central whittled it to less than 10 points once before halftime, but UTSA again turned up the heat and pushed the advantage to 41-24 at intermission.

In the first half, the Roadrunners were extremely active, if not really accurate, in hitting 11 of 37 shots from the field and 16 of 21 from the line.

Turner led the charge with 10 early points. She finished with 16 on 4 of 9 from the field. Perhaps more importantly, Turner also hit 8 of 10 at the line.

“Tonight I think it went well,” Turner said. ”From the previous practices to tonight, I think it was a good outcome. Everybody was working hard and I saw some good things. We’ve still got a few kinks but overall I think we took a step forward.”

Turner, who averaged 6.1 points last year, said she likes the attacking style of the offense.

“The coach was telling me, I got to be aggressive, be more aggressive than my opponent,” she said. ”I took that to heart tonight and just went to the rack.”

In spite of the lopsided score, UTSA still needs a lot of work. The Roadrunners missed several easy shots, some at point-blank range, in finishing 22 of 68 from the floor.

The 32.4 percent shooting was only slightly better than their Division II opponents’ 29.7 percent.